Epilogue
One Year Later
The bourbon was decent. The company was not.
“So I told Misty—that’s my interior designer, she’s absolutely incredible, she did the entire mountain house in six weeks—I told her, Misty, if you put one more throw pillow on that sectional, I am going to lose my mind.” The woman beside Isaac at the bar pressed her hand against his arm for emphasis.
She’d been pressing her hand against his arm for the better part of fifteen minutes, and it had migrated from his sleeve to his bicep to a spot dangerously close to his shoulder. “Do you have an interior designer?”
“I do not.” He shook his head, trying his damnedest not to snatch his arm away from the woman.
“You should. You absolutely should. I can give you Misty’s number. She’s booked out, but if I call her personally?—”
“That’s very generous of you.”
Isaac lifted his glass and used the motion to shift his weight, creating just enough space between them to reclaim his arm without making it obvious. The woman closed the gap withinseconds. She was relentless. Under different circumstances he might have admired the persistence.
Right now, he was hoping it didn’t get him killed.
Across the ballroom, the target was holding court near the silent auction tables. Warren Driscoll. Hedge fund manager who’d been funneling client retirement accounts through a web of shell companies for the better part of a decade. Three hundred families and counting, their savings dissolving into accounts with his name on them while he bought art and threw black-tie fundraisers for causes he didn’t care about.
Driscoll was the Rogue Division’s first direct target carrying on the work Fallon and Cassandra had started. The irony wasn’t lost on Isaac. A year ago, he’d been standing at events like this one protecting people. Now he was standing at events like this one hunting them.
He preferred the hunting.
A year. Hard to believe. After Kessler, he and Fallon had spent two months at the cabin doing nothing but healing. Letting their bodies knit back together, sleeping late, eating meals that didn’t come from a gas station or a hospital tray.
They’d talked about the future in a way that wasn’t hypothetical anymore. When they’d told Ian yes to joining Rogue, it hadn’t felt like a decision. It felt like confirming something that was already true.
They hadn’t looked back. Not once.
“—and the marble in the primary bath is Calacatta, not Carrara, which a lot of people confuse but there is ahugedifference?—”
“Oh yeah. Huge.” Isaac wished he had either type of marble available to slam his head against.
Ryder’s voice came through his earpiece. “Brother, I am watching this woman eat you alive over here, and I have to tell you, people are wondering why I keep giggling like a little girl.Of course, I’m sure your fiancée sees the same humor in this situation.”
Isaac couldn’t respond without blowing his cover, which Ryder knew. Which was exactly why he’d chosen this moment to interject.
But the fact that Isaac hadn’t heard a word from Fallon in over five minutes did not bode well.
She was in the command van two blocks away, running the operation the way she ran every operation: calmly, precisely, seeing everything that mattered and ignoring everything that didn’t. She had a team of three analysts with her and access to every camera feed in the building.
She could also see a woman’s hand on her fiancé’s arm, and the fact that she wasn’t saying anything about it on comms was far more dangerous than anything she might have said.
Isaac took another sip of bourbon and considered his options. The woman yapping about tiles was not going to disengage on her own. She'd found a man in a tuxedo who was letting her talk, and as far as she was concerned, that constituted a relationship.
He could excuse himself to the restroom. He could invent a phone call. Hell, he could fake a heart attack, although that probably wouldn’t be great for the overall mission. Still, he considered it.
Ended up, he didn’t have to do any of them.
“There you are.” The voice came from his left, warm and pointed and perfectly timed. “I’ve been looking everywhere. Are we still doing dinner after this, or did you change your mind on me?”
Isaac turned.
Fallon was wearing a black dress he’d never seen before, simple and fitted. Her hair was up, a few loose pieces against herneck. No jewelry except a thin chain that caught the light when she moved. Just like the first night he’d met her in Boston.
A year of waking up next to her every morning, and his breath still caught.
